Time to get up!

My brain woke me up at 4am. "Get up!" it said. *whine* I thought. "NO. GET. UP." it demanded. Or maybe it was my bladder. I don't know. They're easy to confuse at Dark:00 am.

Capt. was not a morning person. Bedtime at night was a very reluctant 11:00 or midnight, and getting up was an even more reluctant 8am. Funny thing was, even though he'd complain like a child about going to bed at night ("I can't sleep if I go too early! I wake up at 2 am and can't go back to sleep! <etc>...), as soon as his head hit the pillow he was OUT. How do men do that? Himself was the same way. Lay down, go to sleep. All 4 of my sons, same way. Lay down, go to sleep.

It takes me more time than that, and a certain orderly ritual to tell my mind it's time to sleep. I MUST READ. Even if it's only 1/2 a chapter, laying there, book in hand (and yes, it must be a book, with paper pages and a pretty bookmark. None of this electronic e-book thing, even if it has non-blue night mode or whatever), reading with the bedside lamp. In years past, there was the warm presence of a softly snoring man. Now there's the warm presence of a softly snoring dachshund. Also male, also goes to sleep almost immediately. He has to arrange his blanket Just So, but then after circling 3 times he's out. 

Once my brain says GET UP, that's it. There's no laying there, possibly going back to sleep for another hour. It starts clicking and whirling and thinking too hard. If I stay in bed, it goes into dark places and worries about things over which I have zero control, and the only way to stop that is to GET UP. 

The coffee maker is set to start it's Oh-So-Vital job at 5am. Getting up at 4 means I have to *gasp* WAIT for the Elixir of Life and Productivity. I don't like that because I am a spoiled princess, but for obvious reasons, wait I must. But only a few minutes. I remind myself during those minutes that I didn't have to walk 2 miles to a muddy river to get the water. I didn't have assemble the coffee components while groggy, nor milk a barn full of cows.

I decided, a while back, that if I believed in reincarnation (which I don't), then in my last life I must have been an Amish dairy farmer, due to the regularity of waking up at 4am. Granted, the 4am wake-up call is probably due to the 8pm bedtime, but it's a self-perpetuating cycle, isn't it. I try hard to stay up until 9 or 10, but honestly, why should I? 

4am is a great time to get up! It's before the sun or birds are up, and there's something really sweet about having open windows, and hearing the first birds yell about whatever it is they're yelling about. 

HEY...I'M UP! ARE YOU UP YET? 

I AM NOW! IS BOB UP YET? 

YEAH I'M UP! WHERE'S JOE?

I'M DOWN HERE BY THE POND!  and so on.

The first ones up are always the wrens. They like the front porch, and will peer through the window, probably wondering where Capt. is. They were good friends.

A goldfinch on a sunflower, in the front yard

Isn't it wonderful how systematic and reliable God is, when it comes to the natural world, the rising and setting of the Sun, the phases of the moon? I'm always enchanted by a good full moon even though it's happened every single month of my life. The dependable regularity of the seasons...you know it's Spring when the pond peepers and whippoorwills start up every night.  Mankind can make a mess of things, but the seasons happen, the sun and moon do their things, the tides rise and fall, and the wrens yell first thing. Comforting, isn't it.  It's a testament to God's reliability even when things seem to be going sideways.

 Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago. Isaiah 25:1

And so here I am, at 6 am and already finished my second cup of coffee. The dog, who probably has more sense than I, is asleep next to me on the couch, snoring softly and twitching a bit. The sky has lightened and the birds are telling each other whatever it is birds say. #3 just butt-dialed me on his way to work "Sorry, Mom! I didn't mean to get you up!"....no worries, I'm up, have a good day!

This is a magical part of the day. No phone calls except accidental ones from my favorite people. No noise from the road yet, just Dad ripping by in his golf cart, on the way to get the newspaper. I love it. Maybe that's why I am up at 4am.

Recovering

 I still have a hold-over cough from the Flu That Knocked Me Down. Or maybe it's allergies. Who can tell? The privet is blooming and that usually does a thing to me. Benadryl at night and Zyrtec in the morning means I can function with minimal noise.

Anyway, part of my morning routine is to spend a bit of time thanking God for whatever it is I am thankful at that moment. Today that means breathing, tasting food, and the myriad gifts that allow such luxuries as travel. 

Getting to see a whole different part of the world, where things are done a bit differently from here in the Deep South USA, only actually not that differently. People in Barcelona are unfailingly polite and friendly. Very Southern. There's a quiet "oh, disculpe!" ("excuse me!") if we bump into each other in a crowd. I was warned, pre-trip, about rampant pickpocketism there, but nary a pocket was picked. People smiled, and smiled back, asked where we were from, offered opinions about foods and politics, all very Southern, from my perspective.

Children stayed up a lot later than we were accustomed to. 11 pm, and there were young ones shouting and playing on the plaza below our room. When my kids were that age, bedtime was no later than 9pm. Ever. More for my sake than theirs, to be honest. 

I have a thing about cathedrals and the ornateness of them. I was raised in austere Presbyterian churches. Minimal ornamentation, all of them. When visiting a cathedral I was hit by the sheer...overwhelming....

Little nooks for particular saints, gold leaved, statues, each one with a small bank of candles in red glass jars on a rack for people to light in honor or whatever....not real sure. A small sign and box on each rack asking for 1 euro to light

Beautiful stained glass windows, 

 seats for families indicated by painted coats of arms, 

 all really lovely and interesting and through my head was the thought "how many homes could be built with the gold on this stuff?" but that wasn't the intent, I don't think. These were built for the Glory of God, and that's not a bad thing but still. My austere Presbyterian sensibilities had to set aside their prejudices and accept the beauty for what it was and that it didn't care what I thought about it all.

The whole city had these little pockets and pieces of beauty. Why should a lightpole be plain when it could be amazing? 

Why should the hinge on a door be plain when it could be beautiful?

Why should the wall of a building be ugly block when it could be plastered with an amazing image? What a wonderful sensibility! It was fun to turn the corner in an alley and find a dragon, or a small courtyard with a beautiful fountain.

This is a city that recognizes it's special, like an old woman who's lived an interesting life and recognizes she's beautiful.